New Interview with Lindsey about Tusk [Archive]

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John Run

10-18-2024, 11:50 AM

This is a nice recent interview with Lindsey regarding Tusk as it hits 45 years old. Not a lot of new ground, but Lindsey does seem to be reflective, introspective, and appreciative.

I notice a couple of small things that may or may not give credence to the thread from early this week speculating new Fleetwood Mac activity. Lindsey's departure from Fleetwood Mac is now referred to "as he left the band in 2018". That is certainly a softer description than the 2018-2023 narrative. Also, Lindsey is quoted as saying "Everything between Stevie and me evolved in slow, slow motion and, arguably, is still doing so." Which to me may imply there is some sort of communication either direct or indirect taking place between the two of them. Overall, I sense a softness and understanding from Lindsey that many interviews have not conveyed to this reader.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/fleetwood-mac-rumours-tusk-lindsey-buckingham-b2630864.html

Penguin Emeritus

10-18-2024, 02:44 PM

BLY

10-18-2024, 02:50 PM

nice article. i've always felt lindsey had more of a softness and willingness to move on than stevie has...

--Lis

Yes 100% on that Liz.

SteveMacD

10-18-2024, 05:46 PM

The danger, he says, is becoming a caricature of yourself. “You find a lot of artists who fall into that trap, and… maybe they lose the thread of their spontaneous impulses in terms of creativity. They lose the religion of it. And that was something that I was very determined not to do.”

:lol:

His complete lack of self-awareness is comical.

aleuzzi

10-18-2024, 06:31 PM

BLY

10-18-2024, 06:45 PM

I’m definitely getting a sense that Lindsey and Mick are slowly setting the stage for some sort of reunion. John won’t be there—and I’m not sure Stevie will. But I could see Mick and Lindsey working together.

But for me, it’s too late. 2018 shouldn’t have happened and now Christine has died. Even if there’s a Lindsey redemption attempt, without Christine around, I wouldn’t be terribly excited.

Lindsey and Mick have always worked together over the years regardless of what was happening with the band. This has nothing to do with Fleetwood Mac. Mick and Lindsey are great musicians and have a great bond and relationship.

John Run

10-18-2024, 07:04 PM

:lol:

His complete lack of self-awareness is comical.

As much as Steve and I disagree about Lindsey's contributions and value to Fleetwood Mac, he is very much right here. Lindsey tried so hard to be some iconoclastic alternative indy rock hero, he fell into the rote, and lost sight of his greatest attribute, which was as a crafter of fine pop - rock tunes, either his own, or generally better, those of other writers.

John Run

10-18-2024, 07:08 PM

Lindsey and Mick have always worked together over the years regardless of what was happening with the band. This has nothing to do with Fleetwood Mac. Mick and Lindsey are great musicians and have a great bond and relationship.

You may be right. I however have been around too long. Stevie has a very limited 2025 schedule. The last few months are broadcasting something is afoot with Fleetwood Mac and the Azoff money angle will be Stevie and Lindsey.

bombaysaffires

10-18-2024, 08:13 PM

You may be right. I however have been around too long. Stevie has a very limited 2025 schedule. The last few months are broadcasting something is afoot with Fleetwood Mac and the Azoff money angle will be Stevie and Lindsey.

After what Azoff said about Lindsey?? He stuck the knife in and twisted it-- publicly. 'Glad the band had their highest grossing tour without Lindsey'.... 'Has always been aligned on everything with Stevie'....

If Lindsey goes anywhere near that scuzzbag after all that, he's dafter than I thought. Working with Stevie again is verkakte enough, but somewhat understandable. Irving? His family should have him put in a home already if he falls for that. :(

soul_drifter333

10-18-2024, 11:10 PM

Thanks for sharing. I went back and listened to the extra discs from the boxset on the anniversary and they sounded amazing! I especially love the working mixes of Tusk and IKINW. I feel very fortunate that they decided to release the deluxe edition. It has brought me a lot of joy and happiness.
I thought that Rumours was the best selling album of all time when it was released? It might be ninth now, but it was number 1 and played to death when it was released.

WalkAThinLine.

10-20-2024, 07:41 AM

For Lindsey Buckingham, making Tusk was akin to following Jurassic Park with some small indie cult flick. “Here we are in Spielberg-land,” he says of life after selling 16 million copies of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours in 1977, en route to its eventual 40 million global sales. “But if you’re willing to do what you want to do and lose nine-tenths of your audience, then you’re Jim Jarmusch or somebody. That’s what I’ve been valuing ever since Tusk.”

On its 1979 release, 45 years ago this week, Tusk was one of the boldest, bravest, and most bewildering records in rock’n’roll history, the very grandest of rock follies. Fleetwood Mac were following Rumours, the ninth-best-selling album of all time, with this experimental, often ramshackle double record full of junkyard clatter, Kleenex box drums and a full-on marching band. A record that was willing to risk the sort of monumental folk-rock success most bands can only dream of in order to stay creatively invigorated and relevant within an evolving post-punk landscape.

At the time, Tusk sold four million albums: a career-making phenomenon for most acts but a major knockback for Fleetwood Mac. However, as their late-Seventies era has been rediscovered and re-evaluated by subsequent generations, Tusk has become regarded as a triumph of art and creativity over the crass demands of mainstream commerce.

“There was a certain amount of esteem that it did garner from people who might have thought Rumours maybe a little too safe or a little too decadent or a little too California,” the former Fleetwood Mac singer and guitarist, now 75, says down the line from his Californian home, happy to discuss a record that acts as an origin story for his decades of musical exploration since. “But it did take a number of years for it to reveal itself. People, younger artists especially, began to appreciate it, not just for the creativity but for the reason it was done. They could see that there was a method to the philosophy of it.”

Tusk is arguably the most punk record of the Seventies; the ultimate in nonconformist, anti-commercial artistic expression with far, far more than a last-minute punt deal with Virgin Records on the line. For Buckingham, though – relatively fresh in Fleetwood Mac, having joined with then partner Stevie Nicks on New Year’s Eve 1974 and hit the biggest of big times on just his third album release – it was merely the natural next step of an artist following the instincts that were serving them so well.

“With our first album [1975’s seven-million-selling Fleetwood Mac] and then with the Rumours album, everything we’d done had been from our gut, from our heart,” he says. “And [Tusk] was where we wanted to go creatively and emotionally.” The inevitable “far greater, extreme expectations” from their label Warner Bros to repeat the formula of Rumours seemed counterintuitive: this was the Rumours formula.

“It was a spontaneous, authentic set of events that led to the creation of that album,” he insists. “If you then suddenly start to think more in terms of external expectations, and ‘Let’s do another song like that’, then you’re not really prioritising the creativity or the artistic outcome. You are prioritising the commercial outcome.” The danger, he says, is becoming a caricature of yourself. “You find a lot of artists who fall into that trap, and… maybe they lose the thread of their spontaneous impulses in terms of creativity. They lose the religion of it. And that was something that I was very determined not to do.”

Tinkering alone at the 24-track studio in his house, Buckingham was drawn back to what he describes as a more painterly approach to songwriting that he’d employed on 1973’s pre-Mac Buckingham Nicks album: “The Les Paul approach, where you play everything yourself and you’re bouncing tracks around.” He was also inspired by the creative fearlessness of The Beatles and The Beach Boys, as well as the jagged urgency of Talking Heads and their European new wave counterparts, a sound that spoke to the childhood rock’n’roll fan within.

“All the new wave stuff had come in from England and reinforced some sense of what the initial meaning of rock’n’roll had been when Elvis Presley first showed up when I was six years old,” he says. “There was an element of [new wave] that, to some degree, pitted people a bit against Fleetwood Mac at the time. But for me, it was actually something that helped me to find my bearings.”

Famously, Fleetwood Mac were a uniquely fractured family in the late Seventies, with two central relationships – Buckingham and Nicks; John and Christine McVie – splitting up around the writing and recording of Rumours. That record – featuring pointed songs like “Go Your Own Way” and “Second Hand News” – had acted as a raw, cathartic, and accusatory sort of post-relationship couples’ therapy.

Its making had been fraught with compartmentalised feelings compounded by a lack of healing distance. “In the midst of making Rumours, that [friction] hit its full throttle in terms of us having to go in the studio and make the right choices for each other as well as for ourselves,” Buckingham says. But the album’s success had highlighted the inherent magic in the band’s musical bond.

“We rose above our personal difficulties so beautifully in order to make [Rumours],” says Buckingham. “In doing that [we realised] we had a destiny that was more important and greater than all of us personally. When that album did succeed on the level it did, it just made us realise that our personal lives were one thing, but there was something more profound that was going on, and that it was our job to embrace that. In a way, I guess you could say that was galvanising.”

‘We had a destiny that was more important and greater than all of us personally,’ says Buckingham

Certainly, Buckingham arrived at the now legendary Studio D in Los Angeles – built specifically for the band at Village Recorder studios – in 1978 with demos of cranky, angular, sped-up songs recorded in his bathroom, featuring beats knocked out on cheap drums and tissue boxes, to find the Mac receptive to his experimental vision for Tusk. “We had each other, and we were still calling the shots,” he says. “But it was still a fairly radical leap to take. I was lucky that I had bandmates who were open to me taking such a leap at that time… I don’t remember there being any sense of, ‘Oh, where’s your ‘Go Your Own Way’? There was a sense of release in doing something so different and I think it was catching.”

It was, to some degree, a fait accompli on the part of Buckingham. “He had already decided that he wanted to make a solo record,” Christine McVie told Uncut in 2015. “In order to keep him within the fold we all said, ‘Well, look, let him do his experimenting and incorporate it in the album somehow.’ That’s how in essence it came to be a double album.”

Split from Buckingham, Nicks had started seeing Mick Fleetwood – exacerbating tensions within the band – and the Tusk sessions have gone down in history as among rock’s most excessive. McVie remembered lobster, exotic foods, and champagne arriving at the studio by the crateload. “And it had to be the best, with no thought of what it cost. Stupid. Really stupid,” she said. “Somebody once said that with the money we spent on champagne in one night, they could have made an entire album. And it’s probably true.”

And the nights were long. “We went to another kind of world for Tusk,” Nicks said in 1979. “I think it’s fair to say that by the time we got into Tusk land, we were also collectively enjoying ourselves in various ways that the subculture offered,” says Buckingham today. “But that led to a lot of late nights. I always tried to leave by midnight or something, but a lot of times when I go out to my car, Mick [Fleetwood] would run out after me and basically grab me by the collar and pull me back in. I’d have to say I was going to the bathroom and then walk straight out to the car and drive home.” He insists that the band’s behaviour was merely a reflection of late-Seventies counterculture. “Everything just got somewhat decadent around the edges at that point.”

The direction of the album itself, though, wasn’t lost in the cocaine blizzard of its making. “I honestly don’t think it ever really affected the music that much,” Buckingham says. And in terms of drugs getting in the way of recording, he claims Tusk had nothing on 1986’s Tango in the Night. “The habits of some members of the band had gotten so bad that the making of that album was so difficult because people were just so erratic in terms of their behaviour and in terms of showing up at all.”

Everything between Stevie and me evolved in slow, slow motion and, arguably, is still doing so

Still, over 10 months, nobody seemed to notice the Tusk studio bills ticking over a then record $1.4m. Not least Buckingham, whom producer Ken Caillat has described as “a maniac … into sound destruction”, twisting every knob on the console 180 degrees to see what happened and adopting push-up positions to sing into microphones taped to the floor. Buckingham has no recollection of such antics but does agree he was obsessive in the studio. “I would hope so,” he says. “If you’re leading the troops down the road you’ve got to be focused, you’ve got to be passionate.” Buckingham can, however, confirm Caillat’s story of him cutting off his own hair with nail scissors mid-session; “it was just a style statement”.

Between more traditional Rumours-style contributions from Nicks and McVie – folk country drifters like “Over & Over”, “Storms”, and the single “Sara” – Buckingham’s nine songs barge out of the record like a pack of mongrels invading Crufts. They’re often dense, hyperactive garage rock clatters drenched in fuzz guitar breaks and warped, clanking percussion. “What Makes You Think You’re the One” sounds Albini-esque a decade before its time, while “Not That Funny” virtually invents The White Stripes (“You tell Jack that!” Buckingham laughs).

Yet his inherent melodicism keeps them buoyant and as we discuss each of his tracks in turn, familiar themes emerge. A certain thumbing of the nose to the music industry, yes, but also his need to keep a keeling ship of a band sailing straight (“Walk a Thin Line”) and numerous song letters to Nicks – some a little poison pen (“Not That Funny”, “That’s Enough for Me”) but others (“Save Me a Place”) more forgiving. “That’s a reflection of the fact that we were all forging ahead emotionally with our lives,” Buckingham says, “and yet there was still, underneath all of that, a great deal of love and tenderness that we had.”

It suggests he was still processing the issues of Rumours throughout Tusk. “I think I was,” he reflects. “We didn’t have the luxury of distance, and that’s how you get closure, right? You don’t have the proper way of letting go of something because all of those things are constantly in your face. It doesn’t really die or go away or evolve out in the way that it would in a more optimum set of circumstances. Everything between Stevie and me evolved in slow, slow motion and, arguably, is still doing so.”

The title track – a crazed, lumbering carnival parade of a song, accompanied by the 112-piece USC Trojan Marching Band recorded at Dodger Stadium – was an international hit, despite being a seemingly insane choice for the album’s first single. It was chosen as a showpiece for Tusk’s uncontained, expectation-defying spirit. “Warner Brothers’ people had not come down and heard a lot of what we were doing,” Buckingham chuckles. “I always have this fantasy about us delivering a finished album and them putting it on in their Tuesday afternoon boardroom meeting and listening to the whole thing and going, ‘What the f*** was that?’”

The Tusk tour was just as head-spinning. Grand pianos were winched through the windows of hotel suites, painted pink at Nicks’s request, and a tent erected side-of-stage for the band to take drugs in mid-show.

Three years later, Fleetwood Mac reverted to type on 1982’s soft rock Mirage. “Fleetwood Mac has always been a commercial entity,” Buckingham explains. “When [Tusk] didn’t sell 16 million albums, at some point Mick said to me, ‘Well, Lindsey, we’re not doing that again.’ I was like, OK, well that means we’ve got to go back. [To] return to something that we were a few years back spontaneously, and now we’ve got to recreate it forcibly. We were not even those people any more… I wasn’t sure about that. And it was difficult. It was a bit like treading water.” Commercially, too: though Mirage returned Fleetwood Mac to the top of the US album charts, it ultimately sold a million fewer copies than Tusk.

Over more recent decades, seeing multiple generations turn up at shows before he left the band in 2018, Buckingham grew to realise that Tusk was finding an appreciative new audience. “It takes the equation of time to know whether you’ve done your job right,” he says. “I feel that it has been not just vindicated but actually revered again because of what it is and because of the reason that it came to be in the first place, which is to value the artistic outcome, not the commercial outcome, absolutely.”

He hasn’t stopped following his creative instincts since. The same sense of freedom and disregard for commercial concerns is all over his dazzling solo records. “All of that,” says Buckingham, “was because of having made an album called Tusk.”

Villavic

10-20-2024, 08:58 AM

Tusk is arguably the most punk record of the Seventies; the ultimate in nonconformist, anti-commercial artistic expression with far, far more than a last-minute punt deal with Virgin Records on the line.

I have no professional knowledge of music. So when I hear punk, I simply and immediately think in Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Clash, etc . What does Tusk have to do with the music of those bands? Do you agree Tusk is a punk album? Are Honey Hi and Storms punk songs? Or Walk a Thin Line? I agree Tusk was anti-commercial but is that enough for it to be punk? Please somebody explain me cause I don't get it.

HomerMcvie

10-20-2024, 10:13 AM

I have no professional knowledge of music. So when I hear punk, I simply and immediately think in Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Clash, etc . What does Tusk have to do with the music of those bands? Do you agree Tusk is a punk album? Are Honey Hi and Storms punk songs? Or Walk a Thin Line? I agree Tusk was anti-commercial but is that enough for it to be punk? Please somebody explain me cause I don't get it.

Lindsey was a huge Clash? fan. Even though Rumours was the biggest thing in the world, he insisted that Tusk was going to be 180 degrees different from Rumours. It's not punk, but songs like The Ledge and NTF certainly threw the Rumours listener on their ass.

aleuzzi

10-20-2024, 02:36 PM

Lindsey was a huge Clash? fan. Even though Rumours was the biggest thing in the world, he insisted that Tusk was going to be 180 degrees different from Rumours. It's not punk, but songs like The Ledge and NTF certainly threw the Rumours listener on their ass.

Definitely. Lindsey’s attitude was punk-adjacent. He was listening a lot to The Clash and Elvis Costello. He was also, like many punk bands, deliberately thumbing his nose at slick studio polish and crass music biz capitalism. However, unlike the punks, Lindsey’s irreverence came from an existential nausea: he was tired of being affiliated with West Coast Rock, didn't want to “compete with Christopher Cross” (from an interview). Like many punks, he adored early rock-n-roll and garage rock, but he also was obsessed with The Beach Boys and elaborate Brian Wilson-style production methods. So half his Tusk songs are zany rock-n-roll parodies; the other are elaborate choral folk tunes. What all of his songs have in common is a decidedly anti-commercial stance and his prioritization of process over product.

bombaysaffires

10-20-2024, 03:39 PM

Villavic

10-21-2024, 09:15 AM

It suggests he was still processing the issues of Rumours throughout Tusk. “I think I was,” he reflects. “We didn’t have the luxury of distance, and that’s how you get closure, right? You don’t have the proper way of letting go of something because all of those things are constantly in your face. It doesn’t really die or go away or evolve out in the way that it would in a more optimum set of circumstances. Everything between Stevie and me evolved in slow, slow motion and, arguably, is still doing so.”

Still doing so??? I think it's been 6 years they do have the luxury of distance. I don't think they keep in touch or there has been some sort of communication, except maybe briefly when they reunited for Christine's "Celebration of Life" in Malibu. What could be evolving at present? I hope there's nothing going on that we don't know about, because for me the story is already over.

bombaysaffires

10-21-2024, 02:31 PM

Still doing so??? I think it's been 6 years they do have the luxury of distance. I don't think they keep in touch or there has been some sort of communication, except maybe briefly when they reunited for Christine's "Celebration of Life" in Malibu. What could be evolving at present? I hope there's nothing going on that we don't know about, because for me the story is already over.

totally agree

jbrownsjr

10-21-2024, 02:58 PM

:lol:

His complete lack of self-awareness is comical.

Honestly, Steve. How many "Big Love's" are there?
I can argue that as an album, "In The Meantime" is by far, a much higher quality than the mess that SYW is. Even some of the little orchestrations Christine did on her solo album are so warm, funky, and accessible. They also make sense in the genre that she's communicating in. Where his ideas are sometimes just plain weird and unnecessary.

Listening to this latest Live Mirage release reminded me how much the brits did, "foundation wise" in order for him to get away with some of his crazy ideas and amazing solos. They (John/Mick/Christine) literally could play with anyone.
That's often so forgotten.

SteveMacD

10-21-2024, 08:48 PM

Listening to this latest Live Mirage release reminded me how much the brits did, "foundation wise" in order for him to get away with some of his crazy ideas and amazing solos. They (John/Mick/Christine) literally could play with anyone.
That's often so forgotten.

What’s sad is for all his talent he was maybe the one significant songwriter who really couldn’t figure out how to incorporate any of the Fleetwood-McVie-McVie groove into his own songs on the albums (live was a different story). Maybe Christine would be on organ, but never piano or electric piano on his songs. Hell, after Rumours, you’re lucky to hear John on any of his songs (maybe Book of Love, Eyes of the World, and the end section of TITN), at least until SYW.

jbrownsjr

10-22-2024, 07:52 AM

What’s sad is for all his talent he was maybe the one significant songwriter who really couldn’t figure out how to incorporate any of the Fleetwood-McVie-McVie groove into his own songs on the albums (live was a different story). Maybe Christine would be on organ, but never piano or electric piano on his songs. Hell, after Rumours, you’re lucky to hear John on any of his songs (maybe Book of Love, Eyes of the World, and the end section of TITN), at least until SYW.

And when you hear some of OOTC, he tries to replicate some of what the brits did.

Macfan4life

10-22-2024, 08:41 AM

Thanks for posting in its entirety Walkathinline. Its an interesting detail that even though Mirage went to #1 it sold less than Tusk. I wonder how long ago Stevie's comments were about how stupid it was to order so much champagne during the recording of Tusk. I doubt she was interviewed recently so are these old comments? Gurl, you spent over a million dollars on blow during the recording of your solo albums and complaining about the excess of champagne?
One question I would love to ask Lindsey about Tusk is about the tracking. This used to be debated here too. I've heard Tusk too many times so it all sounds familiar to me now to have an opinion anymore. But I remember a theory or allegation that Lindsey purposely arranged the songs to have a sporadic flow. Is it a coincidence that album's most radio friendly song follows the most quirky song? Chris sort of disappears and then reappears on the album. I would love to get Lindsey's take if he even remembers. I have heard the album too many times so it all seems natural to me now. But hearing it for the first time does peak your interest.
I totally get his irk of "not prioritizing commercial intent." Sadly after Tusk that is exactly what the band did for Mirage and especially Tango. In some way the blowback from Tusk put them on the path towards exactly what Lindsey was against. I would love to ask him about that too. I suppose this is why I like and appreciate Say You Will. It has so many Tusk like features. It was too long and definitely stepped out of the Mac's comfort zone on many songs.

David

10-22-2024, 12:23 PM

Definitely. Lindsey’s attitude was punk-adjacent. He was listening a lot to The Clash and Elvis Costello. He was also, like many punk bands, deliberately thumbing his nose at slick studio polish and crass music biz capitalism. However, unlike the punks, Lindsey’s irreverence came from an existential nausea: he was tired of being affiliated with West Coast Rock, didn't want to “compete with Christopher Cross” (from an interview). Like many punks, he adored early rock-n-roll and garage rock, but he also was obsessed with The Beach Boys and elaborate Brian Wilson-style production methods. So half his Tusk songs are zany rock-n-roll parodies; the other are elaborate choral folk tunes. What all of his songs have in common is a decidedly anti-commercial stance and his prioritization of process over product.

That’s exactly how I see his mindset, Tony. The movement was a liberation movement to him, and Brian Wilson setting out on Smile was also a liberation movement. The fact that it never materialized in its time seems to have inspired Lindsey even further, not less, as if a failed project were the ultimate statement in personal musicmaking.

I have no doubt he was listening to many of the punk bands in 1977, and despite what he said, he probably borrowed bits and pieces of the music as groundwork. But Tusk doesn’t remind one musically of the 1977 Clash album, unless you’re looking for individual grunts and patches. The punk bands in 1977 were heavily political, and maybe that’s what made Lindsey decide not to rehash their sound — that, and the fact that he knew asking Fleetwood Mac do to that would have been a grotesque fiasco. The movement was (British) working class rebellion. Lindsey characterized Chrissie Hynde in 1981 as having no professional discipline, which I always thought was odd coming from him, given his admiration for musical rebellion (this was in an interview with Jim Ladd for Law and Order when they were discussing the title). That could be his epithet: spontaneous discipline.

Macfan4life

10-22-2024, 12:37 PM

That’s exactly how I see his mindset, Tony. The movement was a liberation movement to him, and Brian Wilson setting out on Smile was also a liberation movement. The fact that it never materialized in its time seems to have inspired Lindsey even further, not less, as if a failed project were the ultimate statement in personal musicmaking.

I have no doubt he was listening to many of the punk bands in 1977, and despite what he said, he probably borrowed bits and pieces of the music as groundwork. But Tusk doesn’t remind one musically of the 1977 Clash album, unless you’re looking for individual grunts and patches. The punk bands in 1977 were heavily political, and maybe that’s what made Lindsey decide not to rehash their sound — that, and the fact that he knew asking Fleetwood Mac do to that would have been a grotesque fiasco. The movement was (British) working class rebellion. Lindsey characterized Chrissie Hynde in 1981 as having no professional discipline, which I always thought was odd coming from him, given his admiration for musical rebellion (this was in an interview with Jim Ladd for Law and Order when they were discussing the title). That could be his epithet: spontaneous discipline.
That's another interesting feature of Tusk. The album cover could be the cover of any punk band. But the music is not punk (as you say) except those grunts and other oddities thrown in.
Besides the music, the cover was another element to be unconventional and different.

Villavic

10-22-2024, 02:48 PM

That's another interesting feature of Tusk. The album cover could be the cover of any punk band. But the music is not punk (as you say) except those grunts and other oddities thrown in.
Besides the music, the cover was another element to be unconventional and different.

This made me asking another question. What is punk? When I read in the article Tusk is arguably the most punk record of the Seventies, I thought in punk rock, punk music. and I thought WHAT? But reading wikipedia it summarizes punk subculture, that includes a diverse and widely known array of music, ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film.

So I don't relate Tusk music, Tusk sound, with "punk rock" music genre, but definitely it was a different form of expression or art.

David

10-22-2024, 04:03 PM

This made me asking another question. What is punk?

From the point of view of this particular article, think of punk as an attitude toward creativity — dumping commercial aspirations and letting your id fly freely without business considerations.

I’m not sure Fleetwood Mac did any of that on Tusk, not even Lindsey, so the punk characterization is pretty loose. Lindsey always wanted an audience and never said otherwise. He didn’t always get an audience, but he always wanted one. He wanted to bring the public along on his little journey. But he got screwed out of that because the pop audience always had a built-in stodge factor, thanks to mass-market radio play. Independent-minded movie makers always had the same problem in a mass-market art. The problem has always been how to take steps in a new direction but retain an audience. It took Lindsey many decades to find peace with a drastically reduced audience for his solo albums (assuming he ever found peace).

Beethoven used to write fiendish, somewhat crazy and bizarre new music in his later years, and then when they told him that the work wouldn’t be understood or appreciated, just say, “It isn’t intended for your audience, it’s for an audience in the future.”

Macfan4life

10-22-2024, 04:07 PM

This made me asking another question. What is punk? When I read in the article Tusk is arguably the most punk record of the Seventies, I thought in punk rock, punk music. and I thought WHAT? But reading wikipedia it summarizes punk subculture, that includes a diverse and widely known array of music, ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film.

So I don't relate Tusk music, Tusk sound, with "punk rock" music genre, but definitely it was a different form of expression or art.
I think that is what David was trying to express. Lindsey was inspired by punk but clearly the music is not punk except for the attitude towards the corporate commercial record companies. IMHO much of Tusk is folksy and very soft. It was totally not what the record company and the fans expected. Having said that its the album that we look back on and appreciate more and more. I think Mick said IN THAT BLOODY BOOK that Tusk was his favorite Fleetwood Mac album. However at the time the band really disliked Lindsey's plan to do so much himself. I read an interview with Chris many years ago that Chris said their fear was Lindsey leaving the band so they placated his motives.
I sometimes wonder what that band would have been like if Tusk was different. Would Mirage be different? Would they have disbanded? Did Tusk ground them? Regardless Tusk changed the band forever. It made the members hire their own manager and accountants. It made them fade from rock stations. It made them get flamed by music reviewers. It also changed their philosophy to try and be more commercial and pop radio friendly. I love Tusk but the blowback from Tusk irks me and makes me sometimes wonder what would have happened.

Villavic

10-22-2024, 05:01 PM

I sometimes wonder what that band would have been like if Tusk was different. Would Mirage be different? Would they have disbanded? Did Tusk ground them?

I always wonder what would have happened if Tusk had been a simple album? Which of the 20 songs would have been included? What would have been the future of the band and the following albums?

Macfan4life

10-23-2024, 05:12 AM

Tusk is on this list of the top 7 criminally underrated albums of all time. Bruce's Tunnel of Love is also on this list. After Born In The USA, Bruce sort of pulled a "Tusk" and went in a complete opposite direction and did not want to do another commercial style album.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/seven-criminally-underrated-albums-by-icons-of-rock/ar-BB1qtbJf?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=9200b6669d084e588270b2b586a38e8a&ei=27

sue

10-23-2024, 06:12 AM

[QUOTE=David;1297645.

That could be his epithet: spontaneous discipline.[/QUOTE]

I think that’s a marvellous description of Lindsey.
That sums him up in a nutshell and why he might be so difficult to work with….for Stevie.

aleuzzi

10-23-2024, 07:53 PM

Lindsey always wanted an audience and never said otherwise. He didn’t always get an audience, but he always wanted one. He wanted to bring the public along on his little journey. But he got screwed out of that because the pop audience always had a built-in stodge factor, thanks to mass-market radio play.

Oh, definitely. There was a palpable sense of “if I build this, they will come and love it.” He learned otherwise. Just because he was repulsed by the slick yacht rock craze of the late seventies doesn’t mean that the audience they amassed — and the radio stations that promoted their music — wanted otherwise.

FM mark ten, in large part thanks to Lindsey, Mick, and John, always brought a fiery spirit to the music, easy-on-the-ears but undergirded by forceful rhythms and piercing guitar. So they were never going to be The Captain and Tennille or Robert Dupree. And they were never aiming for slick studio polish like the session players for Toto and Steely Dan. Collectively and individually, the band members had personality. Still, Lindsey’s experiments on TUSK probably felt alienating and — possibly worse — pedantic. There are times in various interviews over the years where I got the sense he was lecturing the public on the ethics of aesthetics. But a large percentage of Mac fans didn’t come to FM to do heavy thinking. They wanted to dream (crystal visions, anyone?), relax, party, smoke pot. They wanted sex, romance, intrigue, drama. They wanted to be entertained.

jbrownsjr

10-24-2024, 08:43 AM

But a large percentage of Mac fans didn’t come to FM to do heavy thinking. They wanted to dream (crystal visions, anyone?), relax, party, smoke pot. They wanted sex, romance, intrigue, drama. They wanted to be entertained.

You can pick me up, you can lay me down, but don't get serious!!

LET'S JUST PLAY AROUND!!

aleuzzi

10-24-2024, 11:31 AM

You can pick me up, you can lay me down, but don't get serious!!

LET'S JUST PLAY AROUND!!

Stagecoach!!!!!!!

jbrownsjr

10-24-2024, 12:13 PM

Stagecoach!!!!!!!

Close that door!

Villavic

04-03-2026, 10:11 AM

From the point of view of this particular article, think of punk as an attitude toward creativity — dumping commercial aspirations and letting your id fly freely without business considerations.

I don’t know about other countries but here, in the past, long ago when my parents were young (mid century XX), listening to music was forbidden on Good Friday. However, in the late 70s when I was a kid, radios were allowed to play just classical, symphonic, instrumental music. That changed in the mid 80s, they started to play soft, vocal, pop music like Carpenters, Streisand or Air Supply, combined with rock bands but just their soft, slow songs (Dust in the Wind, Babe, Love of my Life, Drive, etc.).

Having said that intro, to keep with the (80s) tradition, I listened to all the versions of Over & Over while I was showering today. And I remembered this thread, when we talked about how “punk”, or how “different” album was Tusk. Starting the album with "O&O" was definitely a good move to deliver the message "Hey! This is not Rumours 2". But I wonder what other song would have been more suitable for that message and also a good opening track for the album. Did Lindsey consider putting the title track, or one of his other songs, as the first track, instead of a Christine's song?

bombaysaffires

04-03-2026, 02:04 PM

I don’t know about other countries but here, in the past, long ago when my parents were young (mid century XX), listening to music was forbidden on Good Friday. However, in the late 70s when I was a kid, radios were allowed to play just classical, symphonic, instrumental music. That changed in the mid 80s, they started to play soft, vocal, pop music like Carpenters, Streisand or Air Supply, combined with rock bands but just their soft, slow songs (Dust in the Wind, Babe, Love of my Life, Drive, etc.).

Having said that intro, to keep with the (80s) tradition, I listened to all the versions of Over & Over while I was showering today. And I remembered this thread, when we talked about how “punk”, or how “different” album was Tusk. Starting the album with "O&O" was definitely a good move to deliver the message "Hey! This is not Rumours 2". But I wonder what other song would have been more suitable for that message and also a good opening track for the album. Did Lindsey consider putting the title track, or one of his other songs, as the first track, instead of a Christine's song?

interesting take..I don't see Over and Over as any sort of indicator at all about what the rest of Tusk would be like... I see it as a rather familiar sort of Christine love song, chosen perhaps to not scare listeners right out of the gate with something jarring or new. That was always my take on why that was the opening track... a gentle, familiar, Christine song so I don't know that that particular song signals "this is not rumours 2...":shrug:

Villavic

04-03-2026, 05:12 PM

interesting take..I don't see Over and Over as any sort of indicator at all about what the rest of Tusk would be like... I see it as a rather familiar sort of Christine love song, chosen perhaps to not scare listeners right out of the gate with something jarring or new. That was always my take on why that was the opening track... a gentle, familiar, Christine song so I don't know that that particular song signals "this is not rumours 2...":shrug:

Agree O&O doesn't tell how the rest of the album would be like. But comparing it to Monday Morning or Second Hand News, I felt like they, or Lindsey, were trying to say Don't expect the same kind of album.

HomerMcvie

04-03-2026, 07:12 PM

Macfan4life

04-04-2026, 05:45 AM

Agree O&O doesn't tell how the rest of the album would be like. But comparing it to Monday Morning or Second Hand News, I felt like they, or Lindsey, were trying to say Don't expect the same kind of album.
IMHO it sort of does. I think it fits the folksy theme fairly well. Lindsey had the quirky songs but I remember people calling Tusk "folk music."
They should of went with the ultimate fake out and Think About Me should of been the first track.